Tag Archives: architecture

Via Bloomberg: Downtown Manhattan got a new architectural landmark on Thursday. Was it worth it? Well, that’s a more complicated story. Architect Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub opened with an afternoon ceremony to a trickle of commuters and a flood of controversy. (“Functionally vapid,” a “boondoggle” that “wows rather than elevates” have been some of the harsher critiques.) …

In fact, it’s for attractive ladies. Cosmo mocks: According to Huanqiu.com, the very large glass shoe you see above is actually a new church built in Chiayi, Taiwan, for the purpose of bringing all the women to the congregation’s yard. Really — the church was built with “particularly attractive” tourists in mind and will open for the Lunar New Year …

I first reported on One Vanderbilt last September, when developers revealed that it will be 200 feet taller than the Empire State, 400 feet taller than the one-block-away Chrysler, and 600 feet taller than its almost-abutting Met Life neighbor. Today we get a new promo video for the tower, which upon completion will briefly become Gotham’s third-tallest building behind One …

New Yorkers might think we’re getting our own Tower Of Pisa, but as Gothamist explains, it’s supposed to lean like that. They write: A new building is going up near a long-empty land parcel near the East River in Midtown, and it looks a little …sideways. Lest you think this sloped structure is the product of some Jägerbombed architect, it …

The comments over at Friendly Atheist are hilarious and I’m sure you’ll do just as well. Hemant Mehta writes: I hear if you’re especially nice to it, it might grow even taller. (Yeah, yeah, it’s just a building. I’m very immature. As if you weren’t thinking the same damn thing. I suppose it could be worse.) Here’s what really made …

Mashable has published a photo essay which looks back at the original Penn Station. In 1910, when New York City transportation terminal Pennsylvania Station opened, it was widely praised for its majestic architecture. Designed in the Beaux-Arts style, it featured pink granite construction and a stately colonnade on the exterior.The main waiting room, inspired by the Roman Baths of Caracalla, …

Vogue reports: In case you didn’t have enough proof that Beyoncé is slowly taking over the world, Australia just approved plans to build a 68-story skyscraper in the shape of the singer’s famously curvaceous figure. While there have been plenty of oddly shaped structures that have gone up in the past—such as these constructions in the form of a robot, …

Via Architecture Daily: Designed as seven unique building stacked on top of each other, the stepped 2 WTC tower will rise 1,340 feet – a height that would make it Manhattan’s third-tallest building if built today. 21st Century Fox and News Corp will occupy the 80-plus story building’s lower half. The upper portion of the building will be leased by …

Via the Guardian: Four helipads will cluster around one of the largest domes in the world, like sideplates awaiting the unveiling of a momentous main course, which will be jacked up 45 storeys into the sky above the deserts of Mecca. It is the crowning feature of the holy city’s crowning glory, the superlative summit of what will be the …

New York Yimby has some new details about midtown’s coming Nordstrom Tower, which is now under construction. Permits for the tower have continued to shift slightly in recent months, but the documents YIMBY previously obtained indicated the building would have a roof height of 1,479 feet and a pinnacle height of 1,775 feet, which would make it the tallest residential …

Via the New York Times: An imposingly realistic vision of the old 1 World Trade Center, the ultimately doomed north tower, will begin appearing next month in a most unlikely place: the five special elevators servicing the observatory atop the new 1 World Trade Center. From the moment the doors close until they reopen 47 seconds later on the 102nd …

Via the Huffington Post: Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka are giving Architectural Digest readers some major real estate envy, showing off their five-story Manhattan townhouse in the magazine’s March issue. The couple, who tied the knot in Italy last September, told the magazine that they began searching for a New York abode once Harris’ stint on “How I Met …

Brooklyn and Philadelphia both lost iconic neon signs this year and today the same happens in my hometown of Orlando. For decades, the Merita Bread sign acted as a welcoming beacon to downtown Orlando for those traveling eastbound on I-4, just south of downtown. Two years ago, the bread company closed its doors when Hostess, its former parent company, went …

According to plans leaked by New York Yimby, a skyscraper planned for midtown Manhattan would be only one foot shorter than WTC 1, making it the tallest residential tower in the world. 225 West 57th Street‘s facade will top-out 1,479′ above street level, while a surprise spire on top will cap the tower at 1,775 feet. Adrian Smith and Gordon …

One World Trade Center has been judged the tallest building in the western hemisphere by the “official” ruling body of such matters. Sorry, Chicago. The nonprofit Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat—the accepted arbiter on matters of skyscraper height—on Tuesday ruled that the spire atop One World Trade Center counts toward the official “architectural” height, making the new tower …

The “arbiters of world building heights” are meeting this weekend to decide if the almost-completed One World Trade Center will take the crown from Chicago’s Willis Tower as the tallest building in the western hemisphere. “Most of the time these decisions are not so controversial,” said Daniel Safarik, an architect and spokesman for the nonprofit Council on Tall Buildings and …

Via Yahoo News: Banksy, the elusive British street artist nearing the end of a month-long New York City residency, published an op-ed column on his website Sunday slamming the design of One World Trade Center, the 104-story skyscraper scheduled to be opened on the World Trade Center site next year. “As a visitor staying New York for the past few …